This document provides guidance on writing news leads and story structure. It discusses how the lead should summarize the central point of the story in an engaging way to attract readers. The lead needs to answer one or two of the key questions (who, what, when, where, why) in a concise manner. It recommends using short sentences and avoiding passive voice. The body of the story should follow an inverted pyramid structure where the most important information is at the top and additional details are provided in descending order of significance. An alternative is the hourglass structure with an inverted pyramid top followed by a turn paragraph and then a narrative section.

1. Editing the Story
Forth lecture
8 4 2014
By
Dr. Abdel-Mohsen Okela

2. BASIC NEWS
LEADS

3. BASIC NEWS LEADS
The first paragraph or two in a news story is
called the “lead.” The lead (some people spell it
“lede”) is the most important part of a story and
the most difficult part to write, the lead of a news
story attracts the reader and, if it is well-written,
arouses a reader’s interest. It should tell the
reader the central point of the story, not hide the
subject with unnecessary or misleading words
and phrases.

4. BASIC NEWS LEADS
- A central point for a news story is a one- or two-
sentence summary of what the story is about and
why it is newsworthy.
- The central point may be in the first paragraph,
called the “lead.” Or it may be in a nut paragraph
- called a “nut graf” - that follows a lead that tells
an anecdote, describes a scene or uses some other
storytelling device to entice / attract the reader
into the story. By including the central point,
writers clearly tell readers what they will learn
from reading the entire story.

5. BASIC NEWS LEADS
- Beginners confuse a story’s lead with its
headline. The lead is the first paragraph of a
news story. The headline is a brief summary
that appears in larger type above the story.
- Reporters usually write leads that use subject
verb-object word order. Most leads begin with
the subject, which is closely followed by an
active verb and then by the object of the verb.

6. BASIC NEWS LEADS
- use short sentences and short paragraphs. Rewrite
long or awkward sentences and divide them into
shorter ones that are easier to read and understand.
Research has consistently found a strong correlation
between readability and sentence length: The longer a
sentence is, the more difficult it is to understand. One
survey found that 75 percent of readers were able to
understand sentences containing an average of 20
words, but understanding dropped rapidly as the
sentences became longer.

7. BASIC NEWS LEADS
• Sometimes professionals do a poor job of keeping their
leads concise. A recent study of news sources and the
average number of words in their leads produced these
results:
Source Average length of leads in words
The Washington Post 39
Los Angeles Times 34.6
The New York Times 33
United Press International 30.5
The Associated Press 30
• Many readers find a 25-word lead “difficult” to read
and a 29-word lead “very difficult.” A better average
would be 18 to 20 words.

8. BASIC NEWS LEADS
- Every news story must answer six questions:
Who? How? Where? Why? When? and What?
- The lead, however, is not the place to answer
all of them. The lead should answer only the one
or two questions that are most interesting,
newsworthy and unusual.
- When writers try to answer all these questions
in one paragraph, they create complicated and
confusing leads.

9. BASIC NEWS LEADS
- Be Specific.
- Good leads contain interesting details and are
so specific that readers can visualize the
events they describe.
- For example: This lead “The school board
adopted new regulations Tuesday that will
affect all students and parents.” It is too
general and lacks specific details.

10. BASIC NEWS LEADS
- Avoid passive-voice constructions. Strong, active-voice verbs
are more colorful, interesting and dramatic.
- Be Objective and Attribute Opinions.
- Strive for Simplicity, every lead should be clear, simple and to
the point.
- Avoid beginning a lead with the attribution. Names and titles
are dull and seldom important. Moreover, if every lead begins
with the attribution, all leads will sound too much alike. Place
attribution at the beginning of a lead only when it is unusual or
significant or deserves that emphasis.
- Avoid the Negative, when writing a lead, report what
happened—not what failed to happen or what does not exist

11. BASIC NEWS LEADS
- Reporters usually avoid using quotations in
leads. Sources rarely provide quotes that meet
three criteria for leads:
(1)They summarize the entire story (not just part
of it).
(2)They are brief.
(3)They are self-explanatory.
- Some editors prohibit the use of quotation
leads because they lack clarity and often are
too long and complicated. When used in the
first line of a story, a quote also must tell the
reader the point of the story.

12. BASIC NEWS LEADS
- Questions occasionally make effective leads.
Some editors, though, prohibit question leads
because they believe news stories should
answer questions, not ask them.
- To be effective, question leads must be brief,
simple, specific and provocative. The
question should contain no more than a dozen
words. Moreover, readers should feel
absolutely compelled to answer it. Avoid
questions if the readers’ responses may
discourage them from continuing with the
story

13. BASIC NEWS LEADS
• For example: “Are you interested in nuclear
physics?” in this question lead a few readers might
be interested in nuclear physics, but many would
think the story too complicated. This question lead
also fails because readers can answer “yes” or
“no,” possibly ending the reader’s interest in the
story.
• A question should concern a controversial issue
that readers are familiar with and that interests and
affects them. Avoid abstract or complicated
questions requiring a great deal of explanation.

14. THE BODY OF
A NEWS STORY

15. THE INVERTED-PYRAMID STYLE
- Inverted-pyramid stories arrange the information in
descending order of importance or newsworthiness.
The second paragraph - and sometimes the third and
fourth paragraphs - provides details that amplify the
lead. Subsequent paragraphs add less important
details or introduce subordinate topics. Each
paragraph presents additional information: names,
descriptions, quotations, conflicting viewpoints,
explanations and background. Beginning reporters
must learn this style because it helps them decide
what is most important and what is least important.

16. THE INVERTED-PYRAMID STYLE
- It also helps reporters discover “holes” in their
information, details that have not been collected and need
to be found.
- The primary advantage of the inverted pyramid is that it
allows someone to stop reading a story after only one or
two paragraphs yet still learn the newest, most
newsworthy and most important facts. The inverted
pyramid also ensures that all the facts are immediately
understandable.
- Moreover, if a story is longer than the space available,
editors can easily shorten it by deleting paragraphs from
the end.

17. THE INVERTED-PYRAMID STYLE
- The inverted-pyramid style also has several disadvantages:
1) Because the lead summarizes facts that later paragraphs
discuss in greater detail, some of those facts may be
repeated in the body.
2) A story that follows the inverted pyramid rarely contains
any surprises for readers; the lead immediately reveals
every major detail.
3) The inverted pyramid-style evolved when newspapers were
readers’ first source for breaking news; now radio,
television and the Internet fill that role.
4) Readers with less than a high school education cannot
easily understand stories written in this style.
5) The inverted pyramid locks reporters into a formula and
discourages them from trying new styles.

18. THE HOURGLASS STYLE
- The hourglass story has three parts: an inverted
pyramid top that summarizes the most newsworthy
information, a turn or pivot paragraph and a
narrative. The inverted pyramid top, which may be
only three to five paragraphs, gives readers the
most newsworthy information quickly.
- The narrative allows the writer to develop the story
in depth and detail, using the storytelling power of
chronology.

19. Good Luck
In the next lecture
Writing for Broadcast